Friday, November 6, 2009

The widgets are working!

It turns out the NaNoWriMo site has gotten so much unexpected traffic that they hesitated to get the widgets up and running until things were running smoothly. But now you can follow along with Sarah's and my progress as we go. Encouragement and cheerleading is much appreciated.

In my own week, the process has gotten a bit more difficult as I've gone along. Some of it was due to more limited time in my day, like yesterday when I had to take the dog to the vet before work, and therefore had less writing time. (He's fine. It was just a checkup and shots.) More often it's my old problem of second-guessing myself. I'm writing middle grade, so 50,000 words is a lot. I know I'll end up cutting out a lot of what I write this month. But even as I'm writing, I'm asking myself, "Is this conversation necessary? Is it boring?" Then I shrug and write it anyway, because this is first draft territory.

I'm amazed at how many people are participating, and how many words are being written. Of course I realize that doesn't mean they're good words. Some of the publishers and agents are a bit concerned about that, including the guys over at Pimp My Novel and Upstart Crow. Not that they're unsupportive, just cautious. I'd be cautious too if an event might lead to my inbox filling up with garbage.

So keep noveling, people. But don't forget to go back later and revise, revise, revise! And no December submissions on those novels!

4 comments:

Tara McClendon said...

Yeah for widgets. Good luck! You can do it.

TerryLynnJohnson said...

You can do it! Write, write, write. Rah!

Tess said...

well, not every word will be perfect, but that's what revisions are for and I still think it is pretty cool and worthwhile to get it all down and then worry about the fixing later. Write on!

Michelle said...

Yay! Thanks for the cheeleading. Sarah, Bridget and I went out for coffee this afternoon and had some cheerleading of our own.